PPS Instructional Technology

We all know that BrainPop and BrainPop Jr. offers great, fun, short videos for our students.  Did you know they also have fun interactive games to help engage the students and provide practice for the concepts you are teaching?  The best part?  The games are included in our current subscription, so they don't cost you anything!  Check them out today! Here are a few fun ones: Simple Machines . Sortify: Parts of Speech Branches of Government

Drum roll please............. PPS Tech Camp Registration is Finally Open for Portage Public Schools Staff! Yes, you read it right!  You can now register for Tech Camp 2014.  After our inaugural year last year, we took all your suggestions and feedback and have come back with a mini-conference that is bigger and better!  This year we are expanding the camp to two and a half days.  You can register for one day or two days, the choice is yours.  We have lengthened the session times from 50 minutes to an hour and 45 minutes to provide more time for exploration and hands on learning.  We are offering the option to buy lunch onsite, so you can stay and participate in great round table discussions.  Finally, we are opening up the labs Friday morning for those of you who want to come back and try out all your new skills and ideas in an environment where you have tech support available to help, coach and trouble shoot with you as you work.  So much f...

You know we are getting close to the end of the school year when we start advertising and open registration for summer technology training!  We are so excited to offer our fantastic PPS teachers and staff some great hands on training opportunities this summer.  Sign up for one or many.  Come by yourself, or bring a friend. Whether you are a proficient user, or taking your first baby steps with technology, there is a class for you.  So many choices, so little time.  We look forward to seeing you there!  Click on the number link to register for the class in KALPA. Don't know your KALPA login?  Please contact Kelly at kmilliman@portageps.org. Questions about the courses?  Please contact Jessica (jwinstanley@portageps.org) or Paul (pmurray@portageps.org). June Courses Being Offered Technology Open Lab Free Choice Work Session : Do you have a project involving technology that you want to work on this summer? Do you want to work on your webpa...

Videos are a great way for students to learn and be exposed to content. YouTube, TeacherTube and Vimeo have a lot of wonderful video for teaching and learning. What if you could turn these videos from passive, sit and get learning to interactive education? It is now possible with eduCanon. Click the image below or the link in step 2 to check out an eduCanon lesson - eduCanon offers 10,000+ interactive lessons for you to plug and play into your class tomorrow, or the ability for you to easily make your own. Want to see how easy it is to add a lesson?  You can use the lesson below as-is or edit the questions to your students' needs. Either way, download this shared lesson to your account following these easy steps: 1. Go to http://www.educanon.com/signup/teacher/ to sign up (for free). 2. Click the interactive video link: http://www.educanon.com/public/9464/23623 3. Click the copy icon in the top right corner of the lesson as you watch it and select OK when it asks you if...

One of the things that I often hear when training on Google Docs is, "How do I insert ClipArt?"  I then usually have to go through the steps of inserting an image, or pulling in an image from another site.  Well it just got a whole lot easier to insert ClipArt in to your Google Document thanks to the Open ClipArt Add-on! To add this to your Google Docs account: Go to the Add-ons menu at the top of your Google Document.   Click "Get Add ons" Select "OpenClipArt" Now the next time you want to add clipart to a Google Document all you need to do is go to the Add-ons menu and select "Openclipart" and "Search Clipart".  A window will appear on the right side of your screen for you to search! Yeah!